About ThirdWay Brand Trainers

Our Concept is Simple

ThirdWay does brand interventions. We help you change the trajectory of your brand by diagnosing it with audits, training your team and evaluating bids for creative or consulting projects.

We aren’t a traditional consulting firm. We won’t start an engagement with you that will last a year or longer and cost a million dollars or more. Instead, we give you access to highly experienced, recognized brand marketing experts who can quickly get to the heart of your brand needs.

ThirdWay Branding experts come from the consumer packaged goods industry, and have worked on global brands at Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft and Citigroup among other leading companies. Each of our experts has an MBA or other advanced degree and more than two decades of experience in branding.

Our trainers not only know branding “by the book” as an academic or consultant might, they know it from the inside and can share their hard-won secrets. Our company is lead by a renowned marketing expert who has published extensively on brand marketing and has been quoted on brands in the largest publications in the world.

Why Spend Money Before a Major Branding Initiative?

Before you spend six-to-seven figures introducing a new product, rebranding your company or building a new enterprise, start smart. We will evaluate your brand, help you choose the best agency or consultant and train your team. ThirdWay will ensure that you make the most of your big investments.

Our Method

ThirdWay gives you an outside expert’s assessment of your brand. We will honestly evaluate your brand positioning and message, creative and segment marketing strategies. If you are planning to launch a new brand or line extension, re-brand or embark on a major creative project we will help you evaluate agencies and consultants, assess and even renegotiate bids.

We will also train your team to empower them to build the strongest brand possible. Over the past 13 years we’ve helped American Express, Starwood Hotels, The U.S. Army, Navy and Commerce Department, The Corporate Executive Board, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, and Libraries from Vancouver to Fort Myers understand brands and marketing.

Who We Are

David Vinjamuri

David Vinjamuri is a nationally-recognized branding expert and keynote speaker. David is the author of "Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People build Extraordinary Brands". He writes the Brand Truth column for Forbes and is adjunct Assistant Professor of Marketing at New York University where he teaches Branding and Social Media to Master‘s Degree candidates.

David has held marketing and management positions at Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Citigroup and DoubleClick. He has been quoted on brands in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age and Forbes and appeared on PBS Marketplace, BBC World, Fox Business News and MSNBC.

David graduated with High Honors from Swarthmore College and earned a M.A.L.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy where he was a Citigroup/Walter Wriston fellow.

ThirdWay Brand Trainers

Dawn Leijon

Dawn Leijon has over 20 years of marketing and strategy experience, working in small business, classic packaged goods, the military, consumer and business-to-business environments. She is former Director of Marketing for the U.S. Army and has also worked in strategy for Kraft and a variety of other companies.

Dawn graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania‘s Wharton School of Business and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. She spent a decade teaching marketing at Georgetown University.

ThirdWay Brand Trainers

Paul Koulogeorge

Paul Koulogeorge has two decades of marketing experience and is currently VP of Marketing for The Goddard Schools, one of the largest children’s care franchises in the United States. Paul was Vice President of Marketing for EB Games and DFC Global Corp, and Director of Marketing at Coca-Cola. He has also worked in marketing for Kraft Foods and May Department Stores.

Paul holds an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis.

ThirdWay Brand Trainers

Tim Dosé

Tim Dosé has 20 years of experience designing and building websites. He’s currently a product designer for Zocdoc, a leading healthcare website. He’s also worked in the finance, marketing, and games industries.

Tim has a passion for qualitative research such as interviews, usability testing, and ethnographic research. While lesser known, he’s seen these techniques have a huge impact on products and services—and the culture of companies that use them. He also has experience with quantitative methods like surveys, A/B testing, and analytics.